Plug-and-Play Laser Theremin

You may recall the September 24, 2008 post featuring Stephen Hobley and his remarkable handmade Laser Harp.

Now comes a ready-made iteration, ready for plug, play and freak out.

From the website:

Laser Beam Music Generator

This music generator plays a series of notes when you break any of its six laser beams with the movement of your hands, allowing you to reproduce rich, complex soundscapes without any formal training or prior musical experience.

The generator's software combines a patented algorithm with a suite of 64 musical sequences — including MIDI, WAV, and sampled instrument files — synchronized to a digital metronome.

Sequences are assigned to any of the six beams using one of the 30 included original compositions.

Your hand movements control the tempo of each sequence yet the device automatically eliminates discordant chords and sour notes for flawless performances.

Keeping your hand in place plays a beam's entire sequence; when you remove your hand from a beam, that beam's sequence stops.

Two buttons on the generator allow you to assign different instruments to beams while you are playing.

The 30 original compositions bundled into the included software span a range of 19 musical genres, including jazz, bluegrass, rock, and reggae (the classical genre assigns the cello, violin, woodwinds, harpsichord, tympani and french horns to the six lasers).

Your performances can be saved for immediate playback, and additional compositions are available for download.

Requires a USB-enabled PC running Windows XP or Vista.

19"H x 26"W x 4-1/2"D.

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See it in action here.

$399.95.